If you’re a Gmail user, the past is coming due. After years of what seemed like an infinite amount of free storage, Google is starting to charge for more space. Many people are surprised by the move. They shouldn’t be. They’ve been warned repeatedly about Google but just assumed everything would be fine despite Google’s record of changing or sunsetting popular services. Karl Voit, for one, doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for those surprised by the move.
The truth, of course, is that Gmail was never free. You paid for it by allowing Google to read your mail, build a profile of your likes and dislikes, and target you with annoying ads. For millions of people, that seemed like a fair deal so Gmail prospered to the point that many other email services were forced out of business.
Now Google wants to back out of its end of the deal. Since they are by far the dominant email provider, they apparently started thinking that they could squeeze a few more dollars out of those poor souls still using it. Of course, they’ll still be scanning your emails and collecting your data but now you’ll have to pay them to do it.
My advice remains what it has been for many years: if you’re using a Google service, stop. That’s especially true of the services that involve your data. Stop using Gmail and for goodness sake stop using Google documents and related apps. That’s advice I’ve given many times before and I don’t expect it will be heeded this time either. Some people, it seems, enjoy being spied on so much that they’re willing to pay for it.